Even if there's no good remote out there (I've not looked into it either) I would argue that the drawbacks of not having a remote are vastly less serious than the drawbacks of using one of these "smart" devices.

I've been using a $20 air remote off Amazon for years now. The tracking is honestly incredible and the device is built like an old Nokia phone. I've launched it off the bed or couch hundreds of times, even had the plastic casing bust open, but when I clicked it back together it still works good as new, and it's even good enough to play simple point and click/mousepowered games on the TV. The front is all media/TV controls and the back is a full keyboard, with a toggled backlight. It's honestly so much better than any of the media center remotes I've used including the apple tv one or the firestick one.